Sabretusk conversion

I like Sabretusks in my Ogre Kingdoms armies, as they’re cheap, fast redirectors who occasionally manage to kill something useful before their untimely but inevitable demise. Sadly, I don’t really care for the Sabretusk miniatures, as they’re sculpted in a strangely angular style which is almost totally absent from the rest of the range. So I decided to convert / kit bash a couple to use. In the Warhammer Fantasy line there is only one sensible choice of plastic large cat: the lions from the High Elf chariot kit. But, of course, they look very stylised with the High Elves, with no particular reason to be used by the Ogre Kingdoms. However, such an animal might well be enraged to the point where it would throw itself into an enemy unit (i.e. act as a redirector) if it had something annoying it… lets say something small and green and given to carrying pointy objects about its person. A Gnoblar rider would be a perfect option in such a case. The work was easy: I just chose the two Gnoblars left over from the Ironblaster kit with the most splayed legs, cut one off and placed it astride the lion, then glued said leg back on and sculpted the missing part with Milliput. The legs don’t look amazing as the riders are meant to be sitting on a cart rather than the back of a wild animal but they aren’t bad enough to detract from the piece overall.

I’m not sure about the thing sticking out from the mane; I assume it’s part of the chariot assembly. For the time being I plan to leave it as the pose is dynamic enough to justify a bit of rope streaming out behind but if it annoys me when I’m painting then it’ll have to go.

I deliberately selected the riders to look like they had no way to control their steeds, though of course that isn’t too hard with the Gnoblar sculpts as they are all somewhat comedic.

The rest of the chariot will eventually become another Tuskgor Chariot as I have the necessary crew and draft animals available.